10/07/2024
Book now for Golden Peacock - Sing in Yiddish
18-23 August, London
Book here: https://www.jmi.org.uk/event/golden-peacock-24-sing-yiddish/
Featuring the one and only Zalmen Mlotek
Zalmen Mlotek is an American conductor, pianist, musical arranger, accompanist, composer, and the Artistic Director of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene (nytf.org ), the longest continuous running Yiddish theatre in the world. He is an internationally recognized authority on Yiddish folk and theater music and a leading figure in the Jewish theatre and concert worlds. His vision as the Artistic Director of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene brought the award-winning and critically acclaimed Fidler Afn Dakh (Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish), directed by Joel Grey, to New York, for which he served as musical director and conductor. He is the co-creator of Those Were The Days, the first bilingual musical on Broadway, nominated for two Tony awards as well as the Drama Desk nominated On Second Avenue, and the Drama Desk nominated The Golden Land, which toured under the sponsorship of Leonard Bernstein, one of Mlotek’s most notable mentors. Mlotek’s devotion to restoring Yiddish vibrancy launched classics including the world premiere of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Yentl in Yiddish, the Yiddish version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance Di Yam Gazlonim, and the 1923 Rumshinsky operetta, The Golden Bride. Mlotek helped revive Yiddish classics, instituted bi-lingual simultaneous English and Russian supertitles at all performances and brought leading creative artists of television, theatre and film, such as Itzhak Perlman, Mandy Patinkin, Sheldon Harnick, Theo Bikel, Ron Rifkin, and Joel Grey, to the Yiddish stage. Mlotek is a sought after collaborator for many recordings, arrangements and projects in concert, television and film, including consulting for PBS’ The Thomashefskys by Michael Tilkson-Thomas His recent musical, Amid Falling Walls (Tsvishn Falndike Vent), was a collaboration with his son Avram, featuring songs created in the ghetto camps and cabarets of World War II, many from his mother’s collection, We Are Here, the first ever English translated collection of Yiddish Holocaust songs.
